Cops, like soldiers, have long been expected to hide their emotions, but too often they end up carrying bottled-up anger and stress home to their families.

To combat domestic violence, law enforcement authorities in Douglas County and Denver are joining other agencies across the country in developing programs aimed at improving home relationships.

“It’s a major issue in police administration. It’s an issue that in most parts of the country is treated with gravity as opposed to how it was treated 15, 20 years ago,” said Eugene O’Donnell, a former officer, and now professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

In the past two years, the Douglas County Sheriff’s department started a targeted peer support program and the Denver Police Department began a spousal academy for partners of new recruits.

Other departments have similar programs — peer support and chaplains are most common — but they are often informal or lack specific goals.

“We’re the ones who deal with everything no one else wanted to deal with,” said Douglas County Lt. Glenn Peitzmeier, who organized his department’s peer support group.

Officers sometimes walk into death scenes, are shot at and face the chaos at mass events like school shootings, he said. Just one day’s shift could have a mix of dangerous and rewarding incidents that officers must move through without a pause — a large contributor to the emotional stress.

Domestic violence victims of law enforcement spouses also face unique challenges because their spouses carry guns, are trained to use force tactically and often can find the shelters for battered women.

In Denver, when Technician Devin McGinty went through the police academy in 2000, a spousal academy was also attempted that year — although more strictly led by a psychologist. Of 11 spouses who created a bond from that academy, only three remain in relationships today, McGinty said.

“Our biggest problem is we don’t ask for help,” McGinty said. “It’s a culture, but I think it is changing. We have completely different types of people becoming officers. They’re more inclined to ask for help.”

In the past, the norm was to “power through stuff,” he said, like working through a cold, aching shoulder or stress. “But then we also powered through stuff that we shouldn’t have.”

The next spousal academy will begin next year for the class of recruits that start Dec. 30.

Unlike in 2000, McGinty is now designing the spousal academy, which has so far trained 12 spouses, to prepare couples to know what obstacles they will face. It also will seek to help them create connections. It can be with teachers like McGinty and his wife who open up about their own relationship or with themselves.

In the same way, the peer support group in Douglas is designed to get deputies talking to others. Since the program started in March 2012 the department has trained 14 peer advisers who come from all levels of the department. Training consists of 40 hours to give employees insight about how to talk to other deputies and about how to recognize when they might need professional help.

Domestic violence victims applaud the efforts, but say they doubt the programs will discourage those already likely to abuse their spouses.

“For some of them it is a stressful job, but for officers that internalize stress that way, I don’t think it’s going to make much of a difference at all,” said Kindra Cleveland, a former victim of domestic abuse at the hands of a former sheriff’s deputy and lieutenant firefighter. “What it is is arrogance and a power trip.”

An investigation by the Boulder County district attorney found that her now ex-husband, Randall Cleveland, received special treatment because of his work and because he knew the officers who responded when his wife called for help.

Peitzmeier, agreed that some things can’t be prevented, but said departments recognize they must help their officers be better off-duty to help them become better officers.

“More and more agencies are seeing the need to prevent their employees from going under, getting into a bottle or being suicidal,” Peitzmeier said. “It’s about them knowing they have resources and that it’s OK to go out and talk to a counselor.”

Yesenia Robles was a breaking news reporter for The Denver Post, working with the organization from 2010-2016. She covered education, crime and courts, and the northern suburbs. Raised in Denver, she graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder and is a native Spanish speaker.

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